NOTES TO THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.

No. VIII.

GUNPOWDER TREASON.

Speak gently of our sister's fall."

WE had a sister Church at Rome,
Oh whither is she fled?
Long gathered to her Father's home,

Her lamp on earth is dead.

Where, once, with fervent zeal she prayed Before the throne of grace,

In scarlet, gems, and gold arrayed,

A stranger fills her place.

Our sister church, oh call her not!

At once forego the claim; Nor fix so foul, so deep a blot Upon the Christian name.

The deadly cup-the hydra throne-
The blood defiled carouse-

This is no mourner left alone,

Nor this the Saviour's spouse.

But thou her doomed abode hast shown,*
And thou hast named her dower,
For monarchs bow before her throne,
Lay down their wealth, and power.

Her rightful name is Mystery;
And, from her iron rod

To dens and caverns forced to flee,
Behold the Church of God!

We know not her by glittering shrine,
Or sense-alluring rite;

Nor by a long unbroken linet
Upheld in priestly might.

We know her by her blood-washed vest,
And by her joy-lit eye,
Which still as sorrow fiercely press'd
Looked smilingly on high.

We know her by her helm of light,
And by her matchless shield :
By one pure lamp serenely bright,
The will of God revealed.

No “gleam of fancy she can lend”
To please "the thoughts of youth,"
But closely round her steps attend,
Sobriety, and truth.

"At Rome she wears it," &c. See Rev. xvii. 9-13.

+ Endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying. 1 Tim. 1-4.

She conjures up no idle tale

To soothe foreboding fear;

But through life's saddest darkest vale
Says still, the Lord is near,

E'en now she lifts the spirit's cry,
E'en now she brakes the snare ;
From Babylon my people fly
Lest ye her ruin share!

PUSEYISM.

How can I look upon such a school as this as a christian school? How can I look upon those men as honest members of that branch of the Reformed Church established in this land, who declare it to be their great object to “unprotestantize the Church and nation," who teach the duty and necessity of “receding farther and farther from the principles (if they be any,) of the British Reformation," who either directly deny, or endeavour to fritter away, the plain and palpable judgments of the Church on the allsufficiency of Scripture, and the "blasphemous deceits" of the Church of Rome? How can I not look upon those men as Papists in heart and sentiment, who speaks of the Romish Church which the writers of the Homilies identify with the "Mystical Babylon," the "Mother of Harlots," as "Christ's Holy Home, the soothing mother by whom they were all born to God." If ever there was heresy, here is heresy; if ever there was Popery, here is Popery; if ever there was a system of religion, antagonist to the religion of Jesus Christ, here is that system.-Beamish's Two Letters to Pusey.

NOTICES OF REMARKABLE PLACES MENTIONED IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

BY MRS. MILNER.

No. I.

JERICHO.

"The city of Palm Trees."-Deut. xxxiv. 3.

To the traveller who views it in its present condition, Jericho presents a mean and uninteresting appearance. The "Palm Trees" of the days of Joshua, and the "Balsam Trees" of Josephus, have alike disappeared. A small number of miserable huts, surrounded by a fence of thorns, and inhabited by a few indigent Arabs, are the sole remains of one of the strongest and most ancient cities of Canaan. But who, possessing either feeling or imagination, can gaze with indifference upon that collection of wretched hovels? Who can view the frail barrier of thorny shrubs which now suffices to defend it from the incursions of the roving inhabitants of the desert, without being, in imagination, carried back to the time when" the Lord fought for Israel," and when the strong walls of Jericho were, consequently, insufficient for the protection of her king and her "mighty men of valour." Who does not picture to himself MAY, 1843.

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the solemn procession of Priests and warriors bearing in the midst of them "the ark of God," and during six successive days compassing in silence the devoted city? And who cannot almost imagine, that he hears "the long blast," and "the great shout," which, on the seventh day, caused the wall of the city to fall "down flat," thus permitting "the people to ascend up, every man straight before him?"

If the sight of the now insignificant village of Jericho recall, as it must, even to the most insensible and least imaginative observer, the memory of this amazing transaction; so must it also bring back the recollection of the touching narrative concerning Rahab and the Israelitish spies. The flat roof of the house" the stalks of flax laid upon it in order”and the "line of scarlet thread bound in the window" -all this, and more, must be present to the mind of the christian traveller, who, with the Sacred Story imprinted upon his memory, looks upon the little village of Jericho.

Another circumstance, and one which carries along with it a strong confirmation of the Divine Inspiration of Scripture, would doubtless occur to the thoughts of such an observer. I mean the curse denounced by Joshua against the person who should venture to rebuild the fallen city.* It is needless to remind those who are versed in the Sacred Oracles, that this curse was literally, after an interval of more than five hundred years, executed upon Hiel of Bethel. "In the days of Ahab did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his first born, and set up the gates thereof in his

*Joshua vi. 26.